HONG KONG -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's arrival in Taiwan on Tuesday made her the highest-ranking official to visit the democratic island in a quarter century. But it has sparked a furious reaction from Beijing, which considers the self-ruled island a breakaway province that will eventually be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Beijing sees the trip by Pelosi -- a longtime critic of Communist China's human rights record -- as an endorsement of Taiwan's decades-old de facto independence. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen embraced the American politician's arrival and warned that the island of 23.5 million "will not back down" in the face of China's threats to launch days of live-fire military drills.
